A timeline through our history

For more than 115 years we’ve worked with pioneers of their time on mission-critical, life-changing and industry-advancing innovations. Looking ahead, we continue to help the inventions of today impact and shape the future. Join us on a virtual journey through some of the major milestones in our history.

Gwilym Roberts

Chair

2024: Protecting female-first technology

We work with Elvie, a female-founded women’s health company. We’re proud to join Elvie on their mission to ‘empower women through radical female-first technology’. We obtain protection for Elvie’s cutting-edge health technology for women, from smart in-bra breast pumps to pelvic floor trainers.

2023

Helping the world to stay connected

Over the last several years, few companies have had such significant growth as Zoom Video Communications. Zoom has been a lifeline for many companies, helping keep their businesses running during the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond. We have helped Zoom with the protection of its trade mark assets and provided strategy and enforcement advice concerning its trade marks.

A vision of the future with TuSimple’s autonomous trucking

We begin working with TuSimple to help secure European patent protection for a sci-fi dream of the future: autonomous vehicles. TuSimple is the company responsible for the world’s first fully autonomous semi-truck to drive on public roads, without a human driver. Such ground-breaking technology will be used to create an autonomous freight network to not only improve safety, but also improve efficiency and reduce environmental impact.

2022: A series of firsts for cancer treatment

We’re proud to have been at the helm with Immunocore on a series of firsts: their first therapeutic product approved by US regulatory authorities, their first T cell receptor (TCR) therapeutic to be approved in the US, and their first bispecific T cell engager that uses TCRs, components of our immune system, to specifically target cancer cells.

For over two decades, we’ve protected the numerous ground-breaking platform technologies that led to the development of the product, the actual therapeutic product, refinements of how the product is administered to patients, and the product trademark itself.

2021

Protecting the world’s first high field MR-Linac

We work for Elekta and in 2020 obtained patent protection for the ground-breaking Elekta® Unity MR-linac radiotherapy device. Elekta Unity is the world’s first radiation therapy technology to combine a high field MRI device with a linear accelerator in a single system. Previously, such a combination was thought to be practically impossible due to interference between the MR magnets and the production of the radiation therapy beam. Elekta Unity has the potential to transform cancer treatment by enabling the delivery of radiation while simultaneously visualizing the tumour in real time with high-quality MR images.

2020: 20 years and 1000 cases

For Panduit, a world-leading network infrastructure developer, we’re more than an extension of their in-house team. We’re family.

2019

Clearing the way for ground-breaking anti-cancer immunotherapy and defending patent opposition for Johns Hopkins University

We obtain and successfully defend a Johns Hopkins University patent in EPO opposition proceedings. It covers bifunctional cancer immunotherapeutics, which inhibit the body’s immunosuppressive T cells to induce anti-tumour immunity against established tumours and block tumour progression. Two pharma giants recently announced a multibillion-pound deal for development of this type of drug.

2019

WFEL: Engineering excellence and innovation

WFEL is the world leader in tactical military bridges which can be erected in less than an hour and make a crucial difference in disaster scenarios. Our client produces the finest, quickly-deployed bridges for military and disaster recovery purposes. Specialising in defence, WFEL supplies more than 40 armed forces around the world and is a prime contractor to the United States Department of Defense and the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence.

2019

Helping the Netherlands flower

Piet Schreurs, a well-known rose and gerbera breeding company, and our Dutch team have enjoyed a longstanding relationship over the years. The team assists with filing and prosecution of their trade marks in connection with plant variety names and watching services. Very popular in Europe, especially on Valentine's Day, their most famous rose, RED NAOMI!®, was introduced in 2006 and is now cultivated by more than 100 growers.

2019

Going Dutch: Kilburn & Strode opens new office in Hilversum and embarks on an integrated cross-border service in Benelux

Our team, located in Hilversum (just outside of Amsterdam) brings over a decade of senior legal experience in IP and provides clients with deep expertise in trade mark clearance and prosecution, portfolio management, anti-counterfeiting, copyright, designs and enforcement. Our office further helps us provide clients with an integrated cross-border service that works in tandem with our offices in London, The Hague, Munich, and a liaison office in San Francisco.

2018: We open our San Francisco Liaison Office

Reflecting our response to the current changing times in the IP landscape and rethinking the way that not only we, but law firms, interact with clients, we open our San Francisco Liaison Office. Setting a landmark precedent with The State Bar of California, we are proud to be the first European patent and trade mark attorney firm with attorneys registered to practise European patent law in California.

2018: We open our office in The Hague

Home to the second largest European Patent Office presence, after Munich, The Hague is a bustling IP centre. We’re proud to be ‘precies er middenin’, or right in the middle of it.

2017

We open our Munich office

Amidst the largest European Patent Office presence in Europe, we’re proud to be ‘Im Herzen’, right in the heart of it.

2017

Making our clients heard

We represent our client at a hearing at the UK patent office for the largest number of cases ever heard jointly at the UK office and assist with the subsequent and successful appeal at the High Court; developing the law relating to plausibility and enablement in the UK.

2016: Fighting Zika

We prosecute an EP application relating to a Zika vaccine for INOVIO Pharmaceuticals, the first company to be granted permission to initiate in-human clinical trials for the virus.

2016: Assisting the assistant

The trade mark team clears Bixby, the voice assistant for Samsung mobile.

2016

On a hypersonic cruise with Reaction Engines

Reaction Engines’ SABRE^TM engines are unique in providing the fuel efficiency of a jet engine with the high-speed performance of a rocket. They enable hypersonic cruise within the atmosphere at up to Mach 5 (over twice as fast as Concorde) or acceleration in rocket mode up to Mach 25 for launch into orbit. The patent portfolio drafted by Kilburn & Strode has assisted with Reaction Engines’ fundraising of over £100 million from the European Space Agency, the United Kingdom Space Agency, BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, and HorizonX Ventures (Boeing).

2014: Protecting the intellectual property for one of the world’s most innovative families of brands

We have built the trade mark portfolio for a global family of brands, spanning airlines, coffee, energy, finance, food stores, gyms, hotels, IT and telecoms, offices, property, storage, transport, and even dog walking. That is easyGroup.

2013

Teasing the competition

A key confectionary manufacturing patent is opposed by a high-profile competitor in the field. We rely on some creative and clever legal arguments to persuade the opposition division that the patented process is inventive. The patent is upheld.

2011

Celebrating innovation in food packaging

We obtain a patent for our client, a multinational food giant. It protects a twist-style wrap on miniature chocolates, which enables them to stay fresh, while delivering consumer satisfaction when unwrapping.

2010: Fighting the war for robots

We fight to protect the original hit television programme Robot WarsTM by preventing a 3rd party from staging a live event under that name and have kept the trade mark in the hands of the original owner for nearly a decade.

2010: Rewriting the law in Japan

Our Chair, Professor Gwilym Roberts, drafts a patent for his client Sangenic relating to a diaper disposal unit. When it was copied, we worked with our Japanese legal team to enforce the patent through the appeal court. When the damages weren’t enough, we created history in Japan by rewriting the law on how infringers should be penalised.

2009

IP Translator – Landmark case that changes European practice on classification

We file IP Translator in 2009, which eventually leads to a Court of Justice decision that changes European practice on classification. Class headings are no longer deemed by the EUIPO to cover all goods in a class and every national registry in the EU also has to revisit their practice.

2009

Giving movement to Sony Mobile Communication

We are representing Sony Mobile Communications before the EUIPO Boards of Appeal in matters relating to the registration of a movement mark. If registered, this will broaden the client's scope of protection to include brief animations as used in their adverts.

2007

An MBE for former Kilburn & Strode partner, Tibor Gold

For his services to intellectual property, Tibor Gold is awarded his MBE by Her Majesty the Queen at Buckingham Palace following an announcement in the New Year Honours of 2007.

2006: Helping innovations for the world’s largest aerospace company take flight

We begin working for Boeing, the world’s largest aerospace company and America’s biggest manufacturing exporter. Boeing employs over 150,000 people in more than 65 countries around the world.

2006: ‘A Practical Guide to Drafting Patents'

Kilburn & Strode’s future Chair, Professor Gwilym Roberts, publishes ‘A Practical Guide to Drafting Patents’, EIPR Practice Series, Book 3 - 2006, Sweet & Maxwell.

2005

Supporting Norton Motorcycle through a brand renaissance

We were there every mile of the journey to protect this British brand since 2005, as their heritage mark rose to become the most envied motorcycles in the business.

2005

Former Senior Partner Kevin Kearney, is elected Sheriff of London

Legally in charge of the Old Bailey (London's principal criminal court), but forever the entertainer, he hosts all of the judges for lunch at the Old Bailey during trials.

2005

Plausibility for inventive step: Johns Hopkins T1329/04 at the EPO

The benchmark for plausibility is set by T1329/04 (Factor-9/JOHNS HOPKINS), which rejects the possibility of using post-published data as the sole evidence for a technical effect and concludes that the disclosure of the application itself must at least make it plausible that the invention indeed solves the problem it purports to solve. The principal case is still the most commonly referenced case at the EPO on plausibility for inventive step.

2001

Inspiring millions of children to eat more fruit and vegetables

Soft, cute, ugly, delicious. We begin helping TCC Global with their trade mark portfolio. Through friendly casts of characters, like the Goodness Gang, unBEElievables and the Misfits, they help get fruit and veg into the hands of children all over the world.

2000: Olympia v Warheit

Kilburn & Strode's patent attorneys are the first in the UK to be the agent of record in the Court of Appeal of England and Wales – and we win emphatically. The construction point in Olympia v Warheit is on the meaning of the words “flexible pliers”.

2000: The beginning of a 20+ year relationship

We become representative of Panduit Corp., world leading network infrastructure developers, and file their first cases. Twenty years on and 1000 cases later, the relationship is still strong.

1999

Breaking the Glass Ceiling

Kristina Cornish becomes the firm’s first female Partner in its 93-year history, leading many women into successful careers in the firm. Fast forward to present day: we have a gender diverse range of partners, and the firm strives to lead the profession in promoting equality, diversity and inclusiveness.

1992

We work for the most innovative names and brands, save for a few dinosaurs

We file the registration for the iconic imagery for the original Jurassic Park logo.

1990

Dolly the Sheep: Making the impossible possible

Dolly changes the way humanity looks at biology, with the successful cloning of a sheep from a differentiated cell from an adult animal. We write the patent applications and work on all of the subsequent prosecution.

1984

Keeping a close eye on Flopsy, Mopsy and Cotton-tail

We have protected trade marks for the world of Beatrix Potter for more than 35 years.

1976: Workmate™ workbench

Ronald Hickman OBE invented the Workmate™, a popular work bench which can still be found in workshops and garages around the world. Its distinguishing feature is a pair of independently operable vice members, the gap between which could be varied to be greater at one end than the other. Many competitors have tried to copy the Workmate™ and Kilburn & Strode has successfully defended Ron Hickman OBE. His leading case Hickman v Andrews, from the English Court of Appeal in 1976, is still referred to in English inter partes proceedings today.

1969

Concorde's gorgeous 'droop snoot'

Concorde's beautiful ogival wings let her fly at a very high angle of attack to provide enough lift at low speed. With her gorgeous nose designed very long and sharp to position her forward oblique supersonic shockwave, she needed a way for the pilots to see the runway when taking off and landing. Her highly ingenious 'droop snoot' enabled this by hinging down by 12.5 degrees for low speed flight. Our expert aeronautics engineering patent attorneys drafted the Droop Snoot Patent and she was solidly protected by it when she flew. Today, 50 years later, no other successful airliner has had a droop snoot.

1954: Patents and trade marks for world speed record holder Fairey

Kilburn & Strode files first patents and trade marks for Sir Richard Fairey, MBE FRAeS, founder of Fairey aviation and marine business. The company, now WFEL (and is still a client of the firm), still proudly displays in its reception area the world speed record of its Fairey Delta 2, a Concorde prototype, which was the last British vehicle to take the record from the Americans in 1956. It raised the record by 310 mph to 1132 mph and was the first machine ever timed at over 1,000mph in level flight.

1954: ‘Brushing up our Drafting’

Eric Walter Eustace Micklethwait, partner at Kilburn & Strode and former CIPA president, writes the paper on patent drafting, which is still used today. ‘Brushing up our Drafting’ is published in the CIPA Journal, volume LXV, p.72

1940

Bomber interception in WWII: The Micklethwait Height Correction Attachment

"Kilburn & Strode to Fighter Command. Do you copy?"
During WWII, Eric Walter Eustace Micklethwait, who later becomes partner at Kilburn & Strode and a former CIPA president, serves in the Royal Observer Corps. Micklethwait is assigned to the rooftop of the University of London to report the height of incoming bomber raids using a Post Plotting Instrument. He realises that the equipment could be radically improved and invents ‘The Micklethwait Height Correction Attachment’. It is later added to Royal Observer Corps equipment in order to calculate the incoming raid height significantly more accurately and to quickly be passed along the line to Fighter Command for bomber interception.

1930

Napier and Son: Speed record holders ashore and at sea

Until the 1950s, we acted for the Great British engineering concern Napier. Founded in 1808 by David Napier, the second son of the Duke of Argyll’s blacksmith, Napier began with steam engines and steam-powered printing presses, some of which powered the Hansard printing presses for the proceedings of the Houses of Parliament. By the 1900s, Napier began building high-performance road and racing cars, expanding later into a serious aero engine manufacturer. Napier engines powered Sir Malcolm Campbell’s land speed record in the Napier-Campbell Bluebird, his later Campbell-Napier-Railton Bluebird, the first car to exceed 250mph, and John Cobb’s Napier-Railton Special, which today still holds the Brooklands all-time lap record. Napier also builds the inaugural winner of the Harmsworth Trophy, the motorboating equivalent of the America’s Cup.

1924

Frank Halford - The Engineer of Engines

Major Frank Halford, President of the Royal Aeronautical Society and a notable aero engine designer, is the inventor of the world’s first turbocharged racing car, the Halford Special. Kilburn & Strode enjoys a long-standing working relationship with him. Not only does Halford design the inverted inline four Gipsy Major for the ubiquitous Tiger Moth trainer and the spectacular H-24 Napier Sabre for the incredibly fast Hawker Typhoon and Hawker Tempest, he also leads the introduction of the de Havilland Goblin for the Royal Air Force’s first jet fighter, the Gloster Meteor, and the Ghost for the world’s first jet airliner, the de Havilland Comet.

1914

Packard Motor Car Company

We've been gearheads since the very beginning. Kilburn & Strode is selected to handle UK patent prosecution for gears used in luxury automobiles. Dating back to 1899, Packard Motor Car Company was based in Detroit, Michigan.

1913: Captain Maurice Strode joins the partnership

On the 1st January 1913, Captain Maurice Strode joins the firm’s partnership.

1909: Captain Maurice Strode joins the firm

In July 1909, he earns £3 per week. Not a bad salary?

1906

Steel for the Golden Gate Bridge and some of the world’s most iconic landmarks

At the time of Kilburn & Strode’s founding in 1906, Mr Kilburn had been working for several of the world’s great industrial firms, including Bethlehem Steel. They were the second largest steelworks in the United States and its biggest shipbuilder. Bethlehem Steel supplied the steel for the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, which comes in quite handy for our West Coast team today.

1906: The beginning of a 100+ year history of innovation

Bertram Edward Dunbar Kilburn founds our firm. Over the next three decades, he serves as President of CIPA (Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys) and becomes the High Sheriff of Oxfordshire. He is also a keen sailor (his yacht still sails today). Was it at sea where he developed his penchant for the monocle?

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